


good together

by littleshipofdreams



Category: Naruto
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Smoking, Summer, nostalgic temari
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:50:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9673466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleshipofdreams/pseuds/littleshipofdreams
Summary: Temari returns home to Suna only to find that the Council has an ultimatum for her. She turns to Shikamaru for help.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is first fanfic that I've ever published! I'd really appreciate constructive criticism. I think that the rating will go up to E soon, but I'm not sure. 
> 
> This is the shirt that I imagined for Temari: https://laurenwinter.co/shop/wraparound-top/
> 
> I think that this is an AU from the end of the series onward (AKA Shikamaru Hiden doesn't exist). Temari is 24 and Shikamaru is 21.

Temari was not used to peace.

It was hot and humid in Konoha, and the weather made her feel slow and sticky, like candy sitting out in the sun. The Council here was on summer recess. The lords and clan leaders had dispersed to their summer homes outside of the village as soon as their last meeting had been held this morning. They would not be back in session for another month at least, and there wouldn’t be another Five Kage Summit until the fall. The Hokage’s staff was down to barebones - Kakashi and Shizune, and only those who were absolutely required to keep the ship afloat.  
Temari scoffed. What kind of a stupid council takes off for an entire month? It was this kind of indolence that had made Konoha soft and ripe for attack. But the Hokage was confident that at least for now, the village was safe. Missions continued as always. Relaxation was not a luxury that was afforded to shinobi, even now.

But Temari was not a kunoichi of the Leaf. She belonged to the Sand, always would, although she spent most of her time in Konoha. But working in Konoha meant that she had also been given an entire month off of work, and that meant that instead of being in some diplomatic meeting, as she usually would be at three o’clock on a Monday, she was lying with her head at the foot of her bed, covered in a sheer layer of sweat. She had come back to her apartment to find that the air conditioning had broken. Of course, she’d thought, this piece of shit had to bite it now. And that was how she’d found herself lying on her bed, electric fan trained in her direction, making an ominous clicking sound as it oscillated slowly.

How people lived like this year in and year out was a mystery to her. This kind of weather - heavy, still, like warm breath ghosting over her body - inspired a kind of seasonal laziness that she was not accustomed to. After returning home to her apartment and finding that stupid machine broken - so much for Konoha technology - she’d peeled off her dress, flopped down on her bed, and given herself fifteen minutes to lay down before she did something productive. Her practical bra was soaked through with sweat. Even though Suna was blistering hot, it was a dry heat, and the desert got cold enough at night to balance things out. There weren’t so many seasons there - just times when the winds and storms got worse. The passage of time was marked more by festivals and holidays than anything else. But in Konoha, things were different. 

Temari hoisted herself up onto her elbows to look at the clock on her bedside table. 3:07. She huffed out a sigh - time to get going.

Because of the recess, Temari had a rare opportunity to go home to Suna. All she needed to do was pack her things, but she had already decided to leave at dawn tomorrow. No use in packing just yet. A small ball of dread formed in her stomach at the thought of going back home. As much as she wanted to see her brothers, she knew that she would have to meet with the Suna Council as well. Kankuro had mentioned to her in a message that they were itching to see her married. Temari grimaced.

I should go see Shikamaru before I leave. Why did she feel like she needed to see him before she left? They already spent so much time together as it was. That lazy jerk also had the day off, but he had to go back to work tomorrow, and he was probably wasting his free time in much the same way that she had been. She glanced out the window. May as well. She could hear the drone of cicadas ebbing and flowing through the village. Clouds in the distance were hanging low over the cliffs, threatening a storm.

Temari sat up, leaning forward towards the fan. She groaned as she picked up her shirt. It was soaked through with sweat - she would need to find a different one. She quickly moved to her closet. Rifling through her spartan wardrobe, she stopped on a white linen top that she had never worn. She’d received it for her last birthday from Ino. Although they’d never been close, the girl had made a production of giving it to her and winked once she’d opened it. Temari scowled. _I bet that weirdo probably thought Shikamaru would like it, for whatever reason_. More than anyone else, Ino was determined to get them together. Temari felt her cheeks and chest flush at the thought. Must be this stupid heat. People aren’t meant to live in swamps like this. And anyways, how was a shirt supposed to get them together? Temari had to admit, it was a nice shirt - cropped, and made to wrap around and tie in the back. It was just low-cut enough to be alluring without revealing too much. It lay in just the right way over her breast bone. The one time that Temari had tried it on she had blushed, and then scowled. It suited her extremely well. Leave it to that boar-girl to give her something that was so thoughtful and so meddling at the same time.

Nevertheless, she hadn’t done laundry in a while. Most of her clothing was dark and unsuited to the summer heat. And so she picked up the top and put it on, tying it tight behind her back. She walked over to her mirror to take a look, slipping on her shoes as she went - she was sure that she looked like a sweaty, blotchy mess. When she got to the mirror, though, she was greeted with a different sight. 

She looked… good. Beautiful. Hot, not just literally. Temari had never really spent too much time on her appearance - her father and her governess had always warned her away from vanity - but she had to admit that she was pleased. Instead of looking red and splotchy, she looked only mildly flushed, which pleased her in a way that she couldn’t quite pin down. The shirt bared just a sliver of her midriff. Her hair, although sweaty, was done in her usual way, although her baby hairs were stuck to her temples and the sides of her face. All in all, not bad. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea for her to track down Shikamaru.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken me a long time to update, lol. Between work and grad school applications I have been #wreked. SO here's to a marginally less-stressful March!! I'm trying to venture into more M-rated territory with this soon, so we'll see how that goes. Thank you for reading!

As soon as Temari stepped out into the street, she felt like someone had just wrapped her with a wet towel. As she made her way through Konoha, she tried her best to look around as much as possible. Even after all the time she had spent there, life in Konoha was endlessly fascinating to her - not that she’d ever let anyone know. When she’d first come, during the Chunin Exams, everyone she’d met had seemed so free. They were affectionate and cheerful, wary of her and Kankuro but welcoming nonetheless. The kids her own age seemed so much younger than her, unburdened, fortunate enough to grow up in a peaceful and prosperous village - even the naturally dour Shikamaru had seemed so childish. Kids in Konoha were different now. Life was settling back to normal, but they had grown up in wartime. That had left its mark.

As Temari passed by the shops and homes on her way to Shikamaru’s, she listened to the sounds of summer life. Food being made and sold, kids running around, the drone of the cicadas. Shikamaru still lived with his mother in a nice neighborhood near the Nara clan lands, and it took her about fifteen minutes to walk from her place to his. Temari wiped some beads of sweat off of her upper lip as his home came into view.

A sudden anxiety gripped Temari’s stomach. 

Shikamaru’s mother was outside in their yard, hanging up bedclothes on a clothesline. Yoshino smiled at Temari as she approached, hands on her hips, squinting into the sun.

“Temari! Shikamaru told me you’re leaving tomorrow.” Yoshino’s voice was loud in the heavy air. 

Temari smirked at the thought that Shikamaru’s mother could wring any information out of him at all - she was sure it was like pulling teeth. “Yeah, I’m leaving at dawn. The air conditioner in my apartment broke this morning, so I guess it’s good I’m about to leave.”

Yoshino tsked, scowling. “Well, that’s the way these things go, I suppose. New technology is always breaking. You can go on inside. Shikamaru is in his room.”

Temari blushed. She felt like she was doing something illicit. But why should she be embarrassed? She’d been over here plenty of times. She nodded quickly in response. “Thank you, Yoshino.”

She stepped into the cool, dark house and removed her shoes. As she padded down the hallway, she could hear muffled music coming from Shikamaru’s room. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke curled its way into the hall as well. Temari hesitated only slightly before knocking on his door.

“Yeah, come in.” Shikamaru sounded as though he’d just woken up.

Temari pushed open the door to see Shikamaru sprawled out on his bed, a half-smoked cigarette smoking in an ashtray balanced precariously on the windowsill next to his bed. Asuma’s lighter lay next to the ashtray. His black shirt rode up on his stomach, giving Temari a glimpse of dark hair trailing from his navel down past the waistband of his pants. His hair was fanned across his pillow. Temari felt a tingling throb of heat and pressed her thighs together, leaning against the doorframe.

“You’re gonna burn your fucking house down, you know that? For someone who’s supposed to be a genius you can be a real dumbass.” 

Shikamaru slowly opened up his eyes. “I thought I sensed your chakra signature,” he said. “I heard you’re leaving tomorrow.”

"Yeah, you heard because I told you."

Temari crossed his room and leaned over his bed to stub out his cigarette. Lightening fast, he sat up and grabbed her hand, snatching the burning cigarette with his other. “Hey, I’m still smoking that, you know,” he said. He let go of her hand quickly, but Temari didn’t think she had imagined the blush on his pale face. His eyes flicked down to her chest and back to her face. “Those things are expensive.”

Temari huffed and sat next to him on the bed. “I still can’t believe that your mom lets you do this inside. It smells awful in here.”

Shrugging, Shikamaru said, “Trade-off for having me still live here.” He took a drag from his cigarette and blew a trail of smoke out the window. 

“That shit could kill you, you know. And all of your clothes smell.”

“Of all the things in my life that could kill me, I don’t think it’s going to be this.”

Temari rolled her eyes and pointedly fixed her gaze on the crammed bookshelf across the room. “Yeah, maybe five years ago. Now you’re just a desk jockey.”

Shikamaru smirked. “But I get twenty minutes more break time than anyone else in the office.” He turned to look at her fully. “Why did you come by? Just to bother me?”

Temari dragged her gaze from the bookshelf to his face. Sometimes she had a hard time looking directly at him, as though his face was the sun and she would be blinded if she stared at him for too long. In her mind, she heard Sakura’s lilting voice, “That’s not how you think about a friend, is it?” She pushed that thought away. 

She was sure that Shikamaru didn’t think of her that way. They’d known each other for years, and he’d never given any indication that he saw her as more than a friend. Besides, Temari knew that the time was closing in for her to get married. She wasn’t sure how much choice she would have. 

She fixed her gaze on his face, making eye contact for the first time since she had arrived. “I guess so,” she said, forcing herself to keep her tone light. “Since I won’t be seeing you for a while.”  
Shikamaru smiled. He took another drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two weeks, I think. The council wants to meet with me about something in a couple of days so I’ll have to stay long enough to figure that out.”

Shikamaru sat up straighter. “Any idea what they want to talk about?”

Temari contemplated lying to him. She did have a pretty good idea of what they wanted to talk about - Gaara had tipped her off a couple weeks ago. As the eldest and the only girl in the family, she knew that the council wanted her to get married as soon as possible. Apparently they’d come up with a candidate, the son of some wealthy daimyo who’d made his money by investing in hydroponics in Suna. A good, strategic match. For some reason, the thought of sharing this with Shikamaru turned her stomach. “Yeah, I do. Nothing that concerns you.”

“If you’re gonna be like that then maybe I want to know,” Shikamaru snapped. 

Temari glared at him. “Don’t be a baby. I’m allowed to have secrets. If I thought you needed to know, I would tell you.” 

She wondered what he would think if she came back to Konoha engaged. She would be forced to quit her job as ambassador and move back to Suna for good. She would be installed in some palatial compound with her new husband, have a couple of babies, and live out the rest of her life as the miserable, bored princess she was raised to be. 

Shikamaru blushed. Temari allowed herself to look at him again. He had some summer color high on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, a mix of sunburn and tan. He had such delicate bone structure - a fine, small nose, high cheekbones, sharp jaw. _/Handsome_ , people said. _A beautiful man_.

She felt that familiar throb again. It was probably time for her to go - she hadn’t been here for very long, but she felt she had overstayed her welcome. 

“I’ll see you when I get back, Shikamaru.”

Shikamaru fixed her with an unreadable look. “See ya later, then. Say hi to your brothers for me.”

Temari nodded. “I will,” she said. Then, quickly, “Don’t burn down your house while I’m gone. I’d miss you if you died, ok?”

Shikamaru laughed once, breathily. “Yeah, all right. I’d rather stick around for awhile anyways.”

After Temari left the Nara house, she went back to her apartment quickly, flash-stepping along the roofs in an effort to put as much space between her and Shikamaru as possible. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. Ino and Sakura were definitely right. For as much as she’d always resisted their teasing, drunken and sober, she knew that they were absolutely, stupidly right. She felt her stomach clench. _I like him. I like him so much and I want to fuck his brains out and I want him to like me and I don’t want to marry anyone else_. Tearing off her linen blouse, she changed into her traveling clothes and stuffed her pack with everything that she would need. It looked like she’d be leaving much sooner than she'd thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO it's been a long time!! I finally got around continue this, and I'm hoping to work on it more consistently coming up. Also I had to look Naruto geography for this and I felt like a major weeb. I still don't fully know where I'm going with this but I have another chapter to post soon. In the meantime have some more introspective character-building!

Dappled, pink-gold sunlight shown through the leaves of the many trees of the Land of Fire as Temari ran through the treetops. She wouldn’t have to stop for a while yet, as she’d only been traveling for around an hour, and she was determined to make it to Suna as quickly as her body would let her. After her rising emotional panic had subsided - _stupid, stupid_ \- Temari had found herself fully dressed and suddenly exhausted. Instead of leaving immediately and putting as much space as possible between herself and Shikamaru, as her racing brain had told her to do (“ _leave the country, change your name, find a nice cave to live in, surprise the shit out of ‘em and disappear!! Have a nice life all on your own forever!_ ”) Temari decided that it would be a better idea to stick to her original plan to leave just before dawn. She fell into a fitful but dreamless sleep, woke up before her alarm, and left in a hurry while the moon was still in the sky.

Now she found herself hurtling away from Konoha and towards Suna. By now, she knew the journey well. Much as she loved Suna, Konoha had wormed its way into her heart, and she would miss it when her diplomatic position was inevitably assigned to someone else. Suna, she thought, was not as easy place to love, though she loved it fiercely. The land, the people, and the winding village itself were hostile to those who did not know how to survive there - it was easy to get lost in its cramped, narrow streets, all the same color between sandstone buildings stacked high enough to block out the blistering sun. It was full of sandy, aggressive people, burnt by the sun since birth and inclined above all to survive. There was little water to go around and fresh food was scarce. Even Temari, the daughter of the Kazekage himself, had grown up with infrequent baths and fresh meat and vegetables only on special occasions. She knew that wealthy families elsewhere in the desert - such as the family of her potential husband - had easy access to water and as much green food as they could eat. But her father had not believed in such profligate wastefulness in an their arid home and, in turn, neither did his children. Rarely did they dispose of something that could be turned into something else useful. If nothing else, the desert bred resourcefulness.

Konoha, on the other hand, was a different place. Standing in stark contrast to Suna, it was lush and green, and a wealthy and prosperous village to boot. The people and the landscape seemed so simple and joyful when Temari first traveled there for the Chunin Exams. What she and her brothers deemed to be wasteful was merely the norm - Temari had never been so clean and well-fed as she was there. She knew that Kankuro and Gaara thought that living in Konoha made her soft, and the many small luxuries of her life there filled her with guilt.

Temari screwed her eyes shut and shook her head. _No good in thinking about Konoha right now_. Pushing away the offending thoughts, Temari traveled swiftly. Throughout the day she stopped only once in order to choke down a flavorless, chalky protein bar before springing back into the treetops once more. It wasn’t as though she were in enemy territory, but her realization about Shikamaru had distressed her enough to propel her onward. If her body was constantly occupied, she reasoned, there would be little time for her to dwell on whatever her dumb-ass heart had decided it wanted. And so she pressed on.

At nightfall, as the trees had begun to thin and give way to the stony outcroppings on the edge of the Land of Rivers, she permitted herself to stop at the small inn where she usually stayed on her journeys to and fro. The innkeepers were kind but distant, which suited Temari just fine. They left her alone to eat her dinner in comfortable silence. Temari savored the lack of conversation - in Konoha she was constantly surrounded by the noise of people, the creak of wood, the drone of cicadas; and in Suna the groan of the wind and the muted hissing of council members, always plotting, filled the days and nights. 

She took a brief shower, combed out her unruly hair as best she could, and changed into her nightclothes. As she fell asleep, the picture of Shikamaru lying on his bed from the day popped into her head unbidden - slightly flushed, shirt rucked up to reveal his taught, defined stomach muscles, his head resting on the pillow, Adam’s apple bobbing slightly as he swallowed - and she sat up quickly, kicking the thin blanket off of her legs.

“Mmmph!” She swallowed a grunt of frustration and wapped her pillow across the room, lying down once more and not bothering to retrieve it. Serves her dumb, traitorous mind right. Even the brief, flashing thought of Shikamaru had caused heat to build up in her chest and between her legs. For the second night in a row, she fell into a fitful sleep. 

* * *

Temari awoke with the ghost of a feeling, an aching want unfulfilled and a wetness between her legs. Shikamaru’s broad shoulders and strong elegant hands lingered in her mind, and the half-remembered dream of them pressing hotly, insistently where she wanted them most made her feel as though someone had wound her very taught, almost to the point of breaking. She considered taking care of the ache herself, but quickly thought better of it - she could rarely make herself cum quickly, even when she was so keyed up, and she could already see the sun bleeding into the night sky over the horizon. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes roughly and propelled herself out of bed, stretching away her soreness from the previous day and preparing for another day of travel.

She gathered her scarce belongings - toothbrush and toothpaste, comb - changed into her traveling clothes, slipped on her sandals, and left the inn. Her clothes carried with them the lingering sour smell of sweat from her exertion the day before. She found that since she had begun living in Konoha, the smell of sweat had become more recognizable to her - everyone there was so clean that you could smell an unwashed body from a mile away. In Suna, she found, everyone carried with them the scent of their bodies, the fact that they lived and breathed and sweat in the unrelenting daytime heat, and were not able to launder their clothing with enough frequency to hide it. Like the smell of cigarettes, or the metallic smell of Suna’s limited water supply, it was not a smell she minded. 

Resolutely shoving the thought and image of Shikamaru from her mind, she took off again, moving across the landscape as the sun rose in a clouded sky. The day seemed to promise foul weather. Temari found the Land of Rivers to be beautiful, in a rocky, desolate kind of way, and so full of water that it was a miracle. She made sure to fill her water skins as she passed by a stream on another protein bar break. Although they weighed her down, she knew from experience that they would be invaluable once she actually reached the Land of Wind. 

As the trees grew even more scarce, Temari knew that she rapidly approached the checkpoint that would grant her passage into her homeland. The wind whipped through her hair as she flash-stepped across the uneven terrain, and she could no longer ignore her sense of dread. Though she loved her brothers more than anything, she was loathe to meet with the Suna Council on normal occasions, and as the hours dragged on even her constant motion couldn’t rid of the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. She felt as though she was running headlong into a situation she couldn’t control. She was duty-bound. Not for the first time, she cursed her heritage.

_A ton of good it’s done me to be the sister of the Kazekage_. If her marriage to some wormy, well-moisturized daimyo’s son could provide Suna with security and prosperity for the next generation, even if she couldn’t stand him, shouldn’t she do it? Her father had always told her that to be a shinobi was her birthright. But her birthright wasn’t as simple as that. Unlike Kankuro or even Gaara, she had never been trained to rule. Her father had never let her entertain any fantasies that she would be a shinobi for very long. For the time being, it was something to keep her occupied, a noble girl’s idle pursuit. He had told her, roughly and in no uncertain terms, that the time would come for her to set aside her previous life and marry the person that he would decide would bring the most to the village - the most wealth, the most security - and that she would accept it without argument. The day he had told her that, she had gotten into such an explosive fight with her governess - it wasn’t as though she could actually yell at the Kazekage, after all - that her father had locked her in her room until she’d found a way to escape. She’d had to be brought kicking and screaming back to the Kazekage’s compound, but ultimately her fear of her father quieted her down fast. He hadn’t spoken to her for two months afterwards, and she gradually began to accept that she would marry whomever he and the Council picked. Wasn’t it her duty?

* * *

Temari’s journey from the checkpoint to Suna was blessedly boring. In no time, the sandstone walls of the village rose before her. She was finally home. She hadn’t been back in almost four months, and though she corresponded regularly with her brothers, she had missed the sand, wind, and sun almost as much. Actually being there, breathing in the dry, hot air, filled her with a brief, thoughtless sense of peace.

She greeted the guards at the gate - they were all younger than her, and she found with a start that she didn’t recognize most of them - but she was soon off again, through Suna’s labyrinth of streets and to her childhood home in their center. Her moment of peace had passed, and a wave of anxiety coursed through her again. Like all of her problems, she was determined to face the Council head-on. As she passed under the archway of the Kazekage’s residence, she hoped that it was the right decision.


End file.
